"Yes, sir!" A guy in a wizard robe bowed, then whipped out a staff from his oversized sleeve. But don’t get excited—it wasn’t some jewel-encrusted wand from a video game, or a magical girl’s sparkly stick from anime. Honestly, if you saw this thing on the street in China, the aunties would probably use it to fry dough sticks. The guy started waving his giant chopstick around, chanting, "Boom boom, buzz buzz, the gods are speaking!" Then he slapped his hand onto the shoulders of the two people next to him.
Then, the "island" responded. Roars erupted from beneath the waves, rumbling with both shock and murderous intent. Out in the deep blue sea, a few unnatural waves started rolling in.
Inside one of the mechas by the shore, Swallow was the first to notice something off and shouted, "Hey, what’s that over there?"
The base staff instantly got flustered, checking the instruments and yelling, "Attention, everyone! Monster activity detected—twelve kilometers from the base and closing fast! Number one, two... Oh my god, no, that can’t be!" He rubbed his eyes and looked again, then screamed, "There are—seven monsters! Seven Level 3 Kaiju incoming! Seven of them!"
"Crap, we’ve run smack into a Beast Tide!" After years battling Kaiju, humanity figured out that every so often, a massive wave of monsters would attack—what they called a Beast Tide. No one could predict when, and the timing couldn’t be worse. Mark Long slammed the table in frustration and barked, "Lieutenant, take over command!" Then he stormed out, all business.
The lieutenant looked terrified. Seven Kaiju, and all Level 3—that’s basically a death sentence. "Sir, where are you going?"
"To the battlefield," Mark Long shot back without turning around. "I’m Mark Long—the legendary Mark Long! If those monsters want trouble, they’ll have to take me out first!"
Outside, five mechas lined up, ten pairs of eyes locked on the sea. Swallow, Blue Wolf, and the rest all looked tense. The ocean went wild—a series of freakish wave "mountains" rolled in, bursting into shattered spray. Kaiju of all shapes and sizes roared as they tore out of the water, some fast, some slow, some high, some low—it was like enemies were coming from every direction. The killing intent was so thick, even the rookie pilots who’d never faced a Kaiju had their knees knocking.
Inside the third-gen mecha, Swallow shut off the comms and whispered to Blue Wolf, "Let’s find a chance to fake a defeat."